


The Case of the Poisoned Politician

by calathea



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-17
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:34:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calathea/pseuds/calathea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU of the Sherlock Holmes (2009) film. After a patient at the hospital where Watson works dies, Sherlock takes the case and investigates the murky life of an MP.</p><p>Update December 2016: I have abandoned this story and don't plan to continue it. Apologies to anyone who was interested in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is written for Tazical, who came up with the original idea of writing a modern AU which was both plotty &amp; shippy with me. :D

"Doctor Watson! Doctor Watson!"

The door muffled the voice, but there was no mistaking the urgency of the tone, or of the fusillade of knocking that followed. "Doctor Watson, you're needed urgently!"

Watson swung his legs over the side of his makeshift bed, wincing as the motion caused a minor twinge of pain to spike in his hip. Damned NHS rest room benches, they were worse than torture devices. The door shuddered under the assault of another round of hammering.

"I'm coming," he said, his voice rasping in his throat. "Give me a second."

"It's urgent," the person outside said, sounding increasingly peeved. The doorknob rattled.

"All right, all right," Watson said on a sigh. He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to wipe away the weariness of a very long shift that had been unpleasantly full of car accidents, screaming children and the usual mad rush of Friday afternoon drunks. He glanced at his watch and sighed again over the sheer bloody-mindedness of urgent patients who just had to come in during the dying minutes of his shift.

Outside the door, a second voice had joined the first and the conversation seemed to be growing heated. Watson narrowly avoided being rapped on the head by the knuckles that had been raised to knock when he allowed it to swing open. "Doctor Watson, you're needed urgently," Staff Nurse Okolo said, her expression severe. "Didn't you hear Gemma knock?" She rounded on the other woman. "When I say 'go wake the doctor up', you must do so immediately. No pussy-footing around just because he looks tired."

Gemma, a diminutive woman in a nurse's aide uniform, frowned at Watson. "He said he was coming," she said, mutinously.

"I did. Gemma did her job perfectly." Watson tried flashing his most charming smile at the two women. Gemma, who was relatively new to the A&amp;E department, softened almost immediately, her frown melting away. He winked at her.

Nurse Okolo just sniffed and folded her arms over her chest. "VIP about two minutes out," she said, her voice chilly. "Emergency resuscitation on scene. They're having problems keeping him anything like stable in the ambulance."

Watson nodded, her words like a shot of adrenaline in his bloodstream. He flipped his stethoscope around his neck and followed Nurse Okolo down the hall while she recited known details to him. They arrived in the resuscitation room just as the swing doors from the ambulance bay swung open. The paramedics looked harried, although Watson couldn't tell how much of that was due to the state of their patient who, from both their breathless description and the man's appearance, was in a bad way, or the almost hysterical young man who appeared to have accompanied them, who was shouting recriminations and orders at the medical staff even as they worked to save a dying man.

"Who is this chap?" Watson asked the paramedic, making a rapid assessment of the patient's situation and directing one of the nurses to attempt to revive the man chemically.

"Secretary," one of the paramedics said, laconically. "Don't know why he came."

The secretary shrieked. "I had a perfect right!" he said. "I had _every_ right. I am Mr. Jenkins' personal private secretary."

"So you've said," said the paramedic, under her breath. "Eight times."

"Get him out of here," Watson told Nurse Okolo, and she raised an eyebrow at him, but directed Gemma, who was still hovering, wide-eyed with interest, at her elbow, to lead him out of the room. Gemma ushered away the secretary, still complaining, and Watson turned back to his patient.

Long minutes later, though the floor was littered with the cast off detritus of various medical procedures, Watson stepped back from the lifeless body of his patient. He glanced at the clock. "Mark it down as 20:23, will you, Amake?" he asked Nurse Okolo, scrawling a signature across a form and offering it to her. She nodded and, apparently over her earlier anger, touched him gently on the arm as she took the paper work from him and left the room.

Watson stared thoughtfully at the dead body. He'd been a man in his late forties, he estimated, overweight and unattractive, a bulbous nose surrounded by a fleshy face, sticky strands of hair clumped together in a mass above his bald head in a mockery of the comb-over he'd once worn.

"VIP, someone said?" Watson said. "He looks familiar."

The paramedic, who'd stayed to help hold the patient down when he went into severe convulsions moments prior to his death, half-shrugged. "MP," she said. "Somewhere up north. On the telly last night talking about immigration policy. Picked him up from his flat in Vauxhall."

"Ah," said Watson, remembering the angry face on Question Time, even more unlovely then than it was now in death, spitting out hateful words about who was and wasn't wanted in Britain. "There'll be an enquiry into his death, of course. You might want to write up your notes before you go out again, if you can."

The door to the resuscitation room creaked open, but Watson didn't bother to turn around until the secretary pushed past him rudely to stand next to his employer. Nurse Okolo had evidently told him of his employer's death, and he was pale and anguished looking. When he spoke his words were still edged with hysteria. "There'll be an enquiry into his death all right," he said, his voice high pitched and shaky. "There'll be an enquiry into how you _let_ him die, all of you!"

The paramedic frowned. "We didn't _let_ him die!" she protested immediately, her fists balling at her hips.

"Young man, you've no call to be making accusations like that," Nurse Okolo said at the same time. In the cacophony of shouting that followed, Watson wasn't surprised that only he heard the door open again, and another figure slip into the room to eye the body thoughtfully. Watson sighed, his earlier weariness descending onto his shoulders like a ton of bricks.

"Enough," said Nurse Okolo, her voice as close to a shout as Watson had ever heard it. "There will be an enquiry into this death, and that's an end to this conversation."

The room quieted at this pronouncement, though Watson thought it more likely that the secretary was pausing to catch his breath than that he'd been permanently silenced.

"There'll be an enquiry into his murder, my dear lady," said Holmes, staring at the body on the table with his head cocked slightly to the left.

The piercing shriek from the secretary made them all jump. "Murder!" he cried, his face paling even further. "It can't be!"

"And yet, it is," said Holmes, as if surprised anyone would ever question him.

Watson sighed again as the volume of shrieking began to rise again, while Holmes, ignoring demands for him to identify himself and explain how he came to be in a room intended only for hospital personnel, merely stared fixedly at the body of the late Mr Jenkins, MP for somewhere in the north, and appeared lost in thought.


	2. Chapter 2

There was at least another half an hour of paperwork and recriminations before the police arrived and took responsibility for the body. There would, no doubt, be a great deal more to do about the unfortunate Mr Jenkins’ death but for now the police no longer needed him. Watson almost crawled to retrieve his coat and bag from his locker in the doctor’s lounge and wipe his name from the active shift board, thoughts of his bed uppermost in his mind. As he headed towards the exit, he found Holmes staring pensively at the battered door to the room the police used when a case required their presence, his fingers absently braiding the tassels of his…

"Is that my scarf?" Watson asked, finally taking in the details of Holmes’ appearance.

Holmes looked down at himself. "Is it?" he asked, apparently unconcerned.

"Yes," Watson said, through gritted teeth. "The new one my mother sent me that I haven’t had a chance to wear yet."

"You should," said Holmes, stroking a hand over it. "It’s warm and really quite attractive. I’ve always thought your mother to be a woman of exquisite taste."

"That’s because my mother thinks you’re handsome and brilliant," replied Watson, with a grimace for his mother’s often stated opinion that he really couldn’t wish for a better friend and flat-mate.

"Exquisite taste," Holmes repeated, sounding faintly smug.

Watson reached out and grabbed the end of the scarf, pulling it off Holmes’ neck. Holmes spun in place to unwind it from his neck before Watson strangled him. Tying the scarf around his own neck, Watson stalked away. "I’m going home."

"Must you be so melodramatic?" Holmes said, catching up to him a moment later. He leaned closer into Watsons’s space as they circled around an elderly man with a cane making his way through the doors to casualty. Watson manfully resisted the urge to sink his elbow into Holmes’ midriff.

"Me!" said Watson, his voice louder – and higher – than he intended. The receptionist at the front desk frowned at him, and he nodded to her sheepishly as they passed. He lowered his voice. "What about you running into my treatment room to announce a murder?"

"I didn’t run," Holmes pointed out.

"Run, prance," said Watson, dismissively.

"And I do not prance," Holmes said. He came to an abrupt halt at the taxi rank outside the hospital.

Watson carried on for a few more steps, then looked back to see what was causing the holdup. "What?" he said.

Holmes raised his eyebrows. "Taxi," he replied, tersely, and climbed into the first cab in the rank.

"Where are you going?" Watson asked, surprised.

Holmes stuck his head through the open door to look at him. "Home," he said. "As are you."

Watson waved a hand towards the bus stop a few metres away. "I was planning…"

Homes held up a hand. "You’re limping," he said, casting an eye over Watson. "And you’re half dressed in scrubs not quite in your size, which suggests to me both that your own pair were damaged or in some way unavailable to wear, and that you could not face changing into your street clothes and then again into your nightclothes at home. As we walked through casualty I caught the scent of hospital soap on your skin, which likely means that at some stage you showered here at the hospital. Combined with the recent damage to the door to the police medical room, indicated by the flakes of paint on the floor, and the besottedly admiring looks bestowed upon you by some of the more impressionable members of the medical staff as we departed…"

"Really? Who?" Watson interjected.

Holmes ignored him. "I deduce that there was an altercation at the hospital today in which you flung yourself bodily at an unusually large member of the public, most likely one who was both angry and intoxicated. Before subduing him you found yourself crushed between him and the door, exacerbating your pre-existing leg wound, and either concurrently or subsequently you had an entirely too close encounter with one or more of the man’s unpleasant bodily secretions. I think that's more than enough reason to travel home in comfort."

The cab driver, who was following this dissertation with mingled irritation at their delay and interest, now looked dubiously at Watson. "I don’t take no bodily secretions in my cab," he informed Watson.

"I showered," said Watson.

The cab driver grunted. "Get in then, if you’re getting in," he said.

Holmes shuffled further along the seat to allow Watson to get in.

"I could have taken the bus," he told Holmes as he settled into his place, wanting to sigh in gratitude for being off his feet but unwilling to give Holmes the satisfaction.

"You could," said Holmes. He addressed the taxi driver. "Two-twenty-one-B Baker Street, please."

Holmes sat back as the taxi pulled away, and turned to look at Watson. "You could," he said. "Except your chivalrous nature would no doubt have led you to give up your seat for some lady in distress, leading you to stand the entire way, and then by the time you arrived home, you would have been of no use to me in my investigation of the late Mr. Jenkins’ affairs."

Watson sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. "I’ve been on call for the better part of twenty-four hours," he said. "I won’t be of any use to you anyway."

"And there you are wrong, my dear fellow," Holmes said. "Of our entire household, only you know how to work the Sky+ remote. I want to watch Jenkins’ appearance on Question Time."

Watson was startled into a laugh, and Holmes smirked at him. "That I can do," he said.

Holmes nodded, and the two of them sat in comfortable silence then, broken by the taxi drivers occasional exclamation as he fought the late Friday traffic.

~*~

One of the many mysteries of Sherlock Holmes was how, precisely, he afforded his home in Baker Street in spite of having, as far as Watson had been able to tell, no regular source of income. He’d asked only once, shortly after Holmes had invited him to move into the house ‘to share costs’, and Holmes had muttered something about his brother’s success as an investor, the family estate, and the gratitude of an exiled head of state for the return of the crown jewels. Watson, already on their rather slight acquaintance aware that Holmes would tell him nothing he did not want Watson to know, abandoned the enquiry, and decided to just enjoy the privilege of living on one of London’s most expensive streets at an extraordinarily low rent.

The downside of this privilege, of course, was that he had to live with Holmes. His presence was somewhat leavened by Gladstone, the flatulent bulldog he and Holmes had rescued from the Thames while chasing a thief, and Holmes’ landlady Mrs Hudson, who disapproved of everything Holmes did on principle and seemed to regard Watson in the light of a fellow sufferer and confidant. When the car jerked to a stop outside the house, it seemed that, on this occasion, Holmes’ unadulterated company would also be relieved by Inspector Lestrade, who was standing, looking rather mournful, on the steps of the building, dispiritedly pressing the doorbell for their flat.

Watson climbed out the cab while Holmes paid, wincing at the stiffness in his leg and hip, and moved up the steps to greet the Inspector. "Your landlady usually lets me in," Lestrade said.

"She’s gone to Margate to visit her sister," Watson told him, groping in his pocket for his keys.

"How extraordinary," Holmes said, stealing them from Watson’s hand and opening the door. He held out an arm to usher Lestrade and Watson into the building. "I didn’t know people still went to Margate, let alone live there."

Watson cast him an annoyed look, and then turned to the inspector. "Are you here about the Jenkins case then?" he asked.

The inspector shook his head then shrugged. "Must be," he said. "Got a call from Holmes, told me to meet him here."

The door closed behind them, and Holmes swept past them towards the stairs. "It is indeed the Jenkins case," he told them. "Come on, it’s time for you to see a murder in progress."


	3. Chapter 3

By mutual consent, Holmes and Watson paid for a cleaner to come in once a week and clean the common rooms in their flat. She refused point blank to go into the two rooms Holmes reserved for his personal use, and Watson's own, rather tidier habits made him reluctant to pay for her to keep his rooms clean. Despite her best efforts, though, and what Holmes called Watson's nagging, there was a certain undeniable degree of bachelor chaos to their living room, which Lestrade gazed at with apparent wistfulness.

"The missus had me redecorate the front room," he told Watson, a propos of nothing. "Fourteen coordinated throw cushions. She's been watching too many of those makeover shows."

Watson looked around the living room, which was coordinated only insofar as everything was equally shabby, cluttered and comfortable. He patted Lestrade's arm consolingly, and dropped into one corner of the sofa. Lestrade took a seat in a leather armchair, and Holmes continued to flit around the room, unearthing first the Sky+ remote, which he handed to Watson, and then a bottle of whisky. He sloshed a generous measure of the latter into three glasses of dubious cleanliness, handed them around, and took a seat next to Watson.

"If you would, Watson," Holmes said, gesturing at the screen.

Watson took a sip of his drink, and then obediently paged through the menus until he found the programme in question and pressed play.

As the familiar theme tune began, Holmes gulped down his tumbler of whisky, and then snatched the remote from Watson. "Now observe," he said, waving the remote at the screen.

It gave Watson an unpleasant start to see Jenkins alive again, the way the man contorted his heavy jowls into smile, and the neat, if hideous, arrangment of his hair over his bald pate on screen a stark contrast to the wreck of a man who had expired under Watson's care. David Dimbleby was introducing Jenkins now as the MP for Bolton East, reminding the audience of his recent controversial stand on migrant workers and the immigration policies of the current government. Jenkins began to speak, his accent strongly marked by his Lancashire heritage. Holmes muted the sound.

"How does he look, Watson?" he asked, as Jenkins mouthed a defense of his position silently on the screen.

Watson stared at the images as they flickered between Jenkins and the other panel members, who were displaying various levels of disgust, dismay and smug disdain. "Better than he did when I last saw him," Watson said, knocking back half his drink.

Holmes stared at him unblinkingly.

Watson sighed, and looked at the screen again. The camera was on the junior minister acting as a spokesperson for immigration now, with Jenkins visible in the background. "But not good," Watson admitted, after a moment's silent observation. "He's sweating heavily, but that could be the lights. It's hard to tell, but his colour doesn't seem good. And… yes, there, look. His hand is shaking; he can barely hold his glass of water still."

Holmes nodded. "All of which could, it's true, be explained. He was an obese man, so the fact he was perspiring more than the other panelists is not unexpected. He could have be nervous, as this was the first time he'd been on Question Time and he must have been aware than public opinion is not entirely behind him."

As Watson watched, a young woman from the audience stood up and asked a question, her expression angry and derisive. Jenkins shifted in his seat as the camera turned back to him, his fingers clenching on the glass of water he'd been holding. His skin seemed almost grey now, except for two spots of hectic colour on his flabby cheeks. He was answering the question though, and the camera was panning to the shocked and angry expression of the woman representing an association of migrants from central Africa. "He looks ill," he said. "More than just nerves."

Lestrade broke in. "The man was unwell, then," he said. "But we already knew that, Holmes. His assistant and his wife both confirmed he'd been unwell for several days. He went on the show against doctor's orders."

Holmes pressed a button on the remote and the picture stilled with Jenkins in mid-oration, his mouth open and a bead of sweat running down his forehead. He had his hands raised towards the camera as he gesticulated to make his point. Watson looked at the man's face and shuddered, looking away to pick up his whisky glass and take a gulp.

Holmes nodded. "Indeed, he was not a well man," he said. "But what neither wife nor assistant will not have told you is that his sickness was the result of poison."

~*~

When Watson woke, it was early morning, and the light was filtering in through the partially opened curtains of the living room. He shifted, untangling himself from the blanket that had found its way to him in the night, and winced as his hip, leg and lower back all went into spasm in concert.

"I told you you'd regret sleeping on the sofa," Holmes said.

Watson blinked and looked over at him. Holmes was sitting in the armchair close to Watson's feet, staring at him. He held an empty glass negligently between his fingers. An empty bottle of whisky lay on its side on the coffee table.

"Have you been there all night?" Watson asked.

"Yes," said Holmes. "I find your conversation is often more edifying in your sleep than in your waking hours."

Watson blinked at him. "I'm glad I entertain," he said, at last.

Holmes merely inclined his head. "What time do you have to be at the hospital?" he asked, after a moment that Watson spent moving carefully into an upright position.

Watson shook his head. "I don't. Three days off, thank god."

"Excellent," Holmes said. "You can accompany me to meet Mrs Jenkins then."

"I was going to…" Watson started, thinking longingly of his bed, and, less enthusiastically, about the piles of washing he needed to do.

"Come visit the grieving widow of your former patient?" Holmes asked, dropping a newspaper in Watson's lap. He picked it up and stared uncomprehendingly at the images on the front cover. There were three: the largest was a still of Jenkins on Question Time; the second showed a coroner's van outside the familiar entrance to the hospital being loaded with a body in a black bag; and, in one corner, the third photo showed the smiling face of a young woman with long dark hair, who the caption informed him was Jenkins' wife.

"Doesn't look like she's from Bolton East," Watson said. "Tatiana Jenkins. Twenty-six. Married less than a year ago. Also survived by his two sons, twenty-five and thirty."

He looked again at the main photo of Jenkins, at his doughy face and thick fingers. "Grieving, did you say?"

"Russian," said Holmes, as if this was an answer. "Come along, our appointment is at ten."

Reluctantly, Watson allowed himself to be hauled up from his comfortable seat by Holmes and chivvied towards his bedroom, and from there, following a hasty breakfast in which Holmes did not partake, out of the door of the flat.

It was chilly outside, and Watson flipped the trailing end of the scarf his mother had given him over his shoulder and donned leather gloves. "Where are we meeting them?" he asked, as they descended the steps that led down to Baker Street.

"At their home," said Holmes, as he reached the last stair. "Lestrade said…"

"Excuse me," a voice broke in before Holmes could complete his sentence. "Mr. Holmes?"

Holmes spun on the spot, turning to confront the woman who had approached them. She was a solid woman in late middle age, her hair dyed aggressively black but beginning to show grey at the roots. She was dressed conservatively in a somber navy blue coat, and wore no makeup. She seemed paler than even the cold weather warranted.

Holmes had paused. "Yes, I'm Holmes," he said, taking in the woman's appearance, Watson knew, in far greater detail than Watson would ever manage.

"Inspector Lestrade mentioned your name," the woman said in a tight voice. "I wanted to speak to you about Hugh's death." She twisted her hands together in front of her. "Before you speak to anyone else."

Holmes glanced over at Watson. "Hugh Jenkins?" Watson asked.

The woman nodded. "He was… he was…" she stuttered, her composure seeming to fail her.

"He was your husband," Holmes finished for her. She glanced at him with a hint of irritation.

"Ex-husband, yes," she said, calm once more. "More importantly, Mr Holmes, I do not believe his death was natural."

Watson exchanged another look with Holmes. "Inspector Lestrade said that?" Watson asked, carefully.

The woman shook her head. "Not to me," she said. "But I overheard something that he said to my son, and your name, Mr. Holmes."

She looked searchingly at Holmes for a moment. "I have heard of you. There was a case in Wigan; you were involved somehow. My husband – he was still my husband then – he heard the story from the Chief Constable."

"Wigan," Holmes said, thoughtfully. He snapped his fingers. "Drowning, was it not?" He glanced at Watson. "Before your time, old man."

The woman nodded. "I remembered your name," she said.

A pedestrian brushed past her on the pavement, and she took a half step towards the door to the flat. "Please," she said. "I must speak with you, and we cannot discuss Hugh's death on your doorstep."

Holmes stared at her silently for a moment. "You believe there is something suspicious about his death then?" he asked her, at last.

She made a sharp, impatient movement. "Of course. How could I not?"

"Inspector Lestrade," began Watson, well aware, after the argument that had raged last night for almost an hour after Holmes' pronouncement, that Lestrade was not convinced Jenkins' death was not natural.

"Inspector Lestrade is a fool," she said bitterly. "This was murder, I know it was."


	4. Chapter 4

"Would you like some tea?" Watson asked Anne Jenkins -- she had confirmed her name as they mounted the stairs to the flat -- and he ushered her solicitously to an armchair, hastily removing a pile of papers and what he very much feared was a recently discarded pair of pants from the seat.

She shook her head jerkily as she sat down, her eyes roving nervously around Holmes' study. Watson had wanted to talk to her in the living room, but Holmes had insisted that he needed to take notes and could only do so within his own rooms. Watson could not help thinking Holmes' collection of antique scientific specimens, floating unpleasantly in murky formaldehyde, hardly made for a comforting environment in which to interview an angry, grieving former wife. Nevertheless, he took a seat himself in another chair by Holmes' desk. Holmes himself had retreated to the window, and despite his claim about his notes, was staring out at the traffic on Baker Street.

"I want you to investigate, Mr. Holmes," Mrs Jenkins said, finally. "I want you to find who did this to Hugh and put him behind bars."

Holmes said nothing, but turned around to look thoughtfully at Mrs Jenkins. Watson could almost see his mind cataloguing her, his mind building up a picture of her life and habits from the tiny clues she revealed in her face, her clothes, her mannerisms and choice of words. Mrs Jenkins stared back, her face set in stern and uncompromising lines though her hands fidgeted ceaselessly with a crumpled tissue.

"It was far from a friendly divorce," Holmes said, finally, and Watson frowned at the apparent non-sequitur.

Anne Jenkins' eyes flicked to Watson and then back to Holmes. "We settled amicably, out of court," she said.

"For the sake of your children," Holmes said. It was not a question. "And for his career."

She nodded again. A thin strip of the tissue she was now shredding dropped to the floor between her feet. "For the children," she confirmed. "He... Our ward, my sister's daughter who lives with us, was just finishing school. We didn't want her A-levels disrupted by a media circus. The older children too, we wanted to protect them."

Something clicked in Watson's mind. "You have a son in politics himself, I believe," he said, recalling some press coverage of the younger Jenkins.

"Yes," said Mrs Jenkins. "In Liverpool. He'll be standing for MP in the next election."

Her fingers twisted in her lap again, and she dropped her eyes to them, seeming embarrassed when she saw the shreds of tissue caught on her skirt. She brushed at them nervously.

Holmes was looking out of the window again, his hands folded behind his back. Watson cast an annoyed glance at his back, and reached out to lay his hand over hers. "Tell me, Mrs Jenkins..." he said.

"Anne," she interrupted.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back hesitantly. "Anne," he said. At the window Holmes made a little noise that Watson interpreted easily as amusement. He liked to express his mirth at the way Watson "buttered up the witnesses", as Holmes called it. Watson ignored it. "What makes you think your ex-husband was murdered?"

"There were death threats," she said. "Or threats of violence, at least. My son Gareth wanted him to go to the police but he said that his father refused. Claimed he was handling it, that he had handled it before."

"And had he handled it before?" asked Holmes, turning to look at her again.

Anne Jenkins nodded. "Recently, since the divorce, really, Hugh's opinions... well, he became more outspoken, and his ideas weren't universally liked. There were always protesters shouting things, letters, you know. The first couple of times he went to the police, but they told him these people, the kind of people who write, they're rarely capable of carrying out their threats."

She paused, and Watson patted her hand again to encourage her to keep going. She took a breath and continued. "Something was different about the latest letters, though," she said. "Hugh and I kept in touch, mostly about the children, the family, and more generally."

She smiled wryly. "A marriage, even one dissolved amicably, is a complicated thing to put an end to," she said, her eyes flicking once to Holmes, who was standing motionless by the window. "You can't uproot every part of it in a day, nor even in a year. We spoke regularly and I heard more through my children. He was more worried about the latest threats than any of us had seen him before."

"Who were they from?" Holmes asked, and Watson could have kicked him for the coldness of his voice when Anne had just started to warm up to him.

"I don't know," she said. "I only ever saw one of the recent letters, and then only the envelope. He came by to pick something up from our house -- my house now -- and it fell out of his pocket. You'd have thought I'd stolen the crown jewels from him when I picked it up, he snatched it from me so quick and went so pale. I only saw that it had foreign stamps."

"Foreign?" said Watson. "Can you be more specific?"

Anne shook her head. "No, I only caught a glimpse, and that was three weeks ago. Since then I've heard almost nothing from him, but my sons spoke to me a couple of times, telling me their father looked odd when they saw him. Frightened, Danny, that's my younger son, said."

"Forgive me," Holmes said, not sounding at all repentant for what was bound to be a thoroughly unpleasant comment. Watson knew anything that started with 'forgive me' was more or less certain to be unforgiveable. "But I have to wonder why you are telling me this. You might think Lestrade is a fool, but I assure you he is quite capable of looking for letters among your husband's effects."

Anne's face tightened. "I see," she said, and rose to her feet. "Well, perhaps I have wasted your time."

Watson stood as well. "Mrs Jenkins," he said, trying for his most placating voice. He'd had a lot of practice with his placating voice. Holmes' voice overrode his before more than her name had crossed his lips.

"You misunderstand me, Mrs Jenkins," said Holmes. She was staring at him now, her chin set, but the light from the window cast his face into shadow, making him inscrutable. "You made a career from being a politician's wife and a good mother. The divorce stripped away that job, many of your material comforts and some of your respectability. Your husband left you for the embrace of a much younger woman and some rather extreme political views, neither of which did much to restore your position among the good women of Bolton. He has been gone from your life for over a year."

Holmes stopped to look at her, but she said nothing, her lips pressed together so hard they were nearly bloodless. "I remember the job in Wigan," he said, almost idly. "It was a mess, of course, and the press were like vultures, but much of it -- most of it -- never made it into the papers."

There was a long silence.

"He was a good man, once," said Anne, at last, her voice controlled. "When we met... He was a good man. He is the father of my children. They deserve to know."

Holmes inclined his head. "Then I shall investigate," he said.

~*~

Ten minutes later Holmes and Watson were walking rapidly down Baker Street, having put Mrs Jenkins in a taxi and sent her on her way.

"What the hell was that about, 'then I'll investigate'," said Watson, aggravated, once they were on their way and out of earshot of the widow. "You were on your way out the door to investigate when she arrived!"

"True, but it's always best to have plenty of excuses for one's, now how did Lestrade put this, meddling in the affairs of the police," Holmes said.

"And what was all that stuff about her marriage?" Watson said, dodging around a woman pushing a pram.

"Really Watson, you must train your eye on the details," said Holmes, sounding slightly disapproving. "Did you not see her handbag? And her shoes? And the way she played with her rings?"

Watson cast his mind back, but could think of nothing particularly notable about Anne Jenkins' shoes, bag or rings. "No," he said.

Holmes sighed and shook his head, and then glanced at a clock they passed on the street. "Come along, or we'll be late meeting the more recent Mrs Jenkins."

"Holmes!" Watson said, but Holmes had already sped off down a narrow side-street, and Watson had no choice but to follow.


End file.
